Banking is a Traumatic Experience
by Writers4All
Summary: Really, all he did was walk into a bank. The bank robbers just happened to do the same thing at the same time.


Alex was feeling incredibly bored. He did not want to get his check today. Well, no, that wasn't true. He did want to get his check today. He just wanted to figure out what was going on. Why were things taking so long? He knew it was partly because Ben was his new guardian - Jack had gone back to the states - and the bank didn't know that. He sighed as he tapped his watch in line.

Wouldn't it just be his luck if something happened while he was in here to make his experience even longer? Like a bank robbery, or something? Alex instantly dismissed the thought. Thinking that way would only get him in trouble.

He glanced across the room, and ducked the gaze of a former classmate of his. It wouldn't be the first time the elder had spewed insults at him, and Alex just wanted a peaceful day. Well, as peaceful day as he could get hanging out with K-Unit. Someone had already given Eagle access to sugar that morning (they would now have to ask all waitresses not to give him any sugar), so it wouldn't be all that peaceful.

He glanced at Ben, who was also in line. Both had pay from MI6 that they were getting to use on their brief holiday today.

Alex waited, leaning on a corner, while Ben finished filling out the paperwork. He signed his signature, and hefted his backpack over his shoulder. Alex would never know why he still had the habit of carrying around every possible thing he might need, but when asked, all Ben would reply with was a shudder and a, "Sergeant. He was scary."

Ben had just finished signing while the receptionist came back with their check, handing him the money. Ben had just slipped it into his sack and the two were turning to leave as they heard a bullet. Alex instinctively ducked and shoved Ben to the ground, falling next to him as he did so. He didn't fail to hear Ben's cry of "What the _fuck_, Alex?" as he rolled under a table, and got up onto his hands and knees. Ben started to stand up, but quickly dropped back down again when another bullet whizzed over his head. "Whoa!"

"That wasn't nice..." Alex muttered under his breath.

He and Ben exchanged glances, and then looked back up over the table and the five armed men entering the bank. Alex frowned. He was pretty sure that one of the bullets had already come from inside the bank. But who - looking around, he saw a mask now on his former classmate. _SHIT! _he swore inwardly, thinking to himself this was about to get really ugly. It was a good thing Ben knew about what the rumors in school regarding him were.

He squeezed even further under the little red table, hoping against hope to be ignored, but all was lost as his former classmate- Matt something - grabbed him and dragged him out by the arm. "Nice try, Rider, nice try. I've always wanted to waste you, so don't do anything stupid, alright? I have no problem with putting a bullet in your brain."

Alex resisted the urge to mutter something smart aleck-y, especially once his partner shot him a warning look. Matt glanced at Ben, but didn't recognize him, and continued pulling Alex over to the middle of the bank where most _normal_people picked up their deposit slips.

"Everyone down on the ground, or I swear to God, I'll shoot!" Alex wouldn't have known that Matt was only twenty-one if he hadn't known him while he was at school. Alex was now seventeen and was between missions at the moment. "Everyone down, or I'll shoot the kid! Drop your phones, and back away from them!"

Oh, God.

He'd just become Matt's personal leverage. He continued giving his orders, sending people to one corner of the wall. All the easier to shoot.

The other two robbers started moving to the back, and one snapped at a clerk to get them money from there. The man stuttered that he didn't know the proper access codes, but they obviously didn't care. The trio marched into the back-well, two marched, the other was more or less dragged-to retrieve a large profit.

Alex turned his head slightly, and glanced out the windows. He caught Eagle's gaze, who paused for a moment in torturing Wolf. The happy man saw him, waved, and then hesitated. "I just wanted to send the money in, I swear," Alex mouthed. Eagle grabbed Wolf's arm and shook it violently. Snake looked out from the car, and then ducked back in to grab his phone.

Fox seemed to be wondering why he still followed the bad-luck teen into areas that were obviously a bad idea to follow him into.

Alex glanced at the Royal & General sign, and sent a significant glare towards the cameras. If looks could kill, the cameras would be on fire. The security guards had miraculously teleported away, probably to laugh their heads off at the young spy. Blunt was probably ignoring him.

Again, Alex looked for the guards. Seriously, where were they?

Then he saw the elevator going up, and one of the guards flash him a quickly hand made sign that said "Good luck!"

Ben saw the sign too, and uttered a low groan.

"Everybody to the center of the room!" Matt yelled, waving his gun around.

If he could've been taken hostage by anyone, why, _why_ did it have to be by complete morons? The inexperience of the bank robbers was astounding. It was almost like, "Hey, let's just grab a random bank, rob it, and get a little revenge on a school punk while we're at it!" They obviously had watched one too many spy movies. They should've at least closed the _blinds_.

Except they hadn't watched enough to know whether or not they were in a spy bank. What Alex didn't know, and couldn't know, was that Alan Blunt and Jones were out for the day. So was Crawley and most of the security. They were at a "conference."

"Hey, hey, Wolf! Look, a bird!" Eagle said. Unfortunately, he was running out of things to annoy his comrades with. But he really was getting bored. What were his friends _doing_? He knew banks were annoying and slow, but really?

He took a sideways look into the bank to see if they were coming out. Upon inspection, he saw no one was coming out. In fact, no one was going in either, or looked like they wanted to. Cub saw him from inside, and mouthed something that Eagle interpreted as, "This idiot has a really big gun."

"Hey, hey, Wolf! Snake!" he yelled. "Look!"

"What? So help me, if it's another bird, they will not be finding your body..." Wolf threatened. Eagle shook his arm, and pointed inside. "Holy crap. Why did we let the kid go anywhere near an area that might have some sort of problem like this?"

Eagle shrugged. "Beats me. Hey, it looks like he's being held hostage."

"No, Eagle, they're just playing a game. What do you think?" Wolf snapped. He quickly picked up his phone. He, like his comrades, was blissfully unaware of the truth. They had no idea that the Royal and General bank was a spy bank.

"This is Wolf - team leader of the SAS - reporting in. We would like to report a robbery at the Royal and General Bank, downtown." Wolf hated calling 9-9-9, but he felt like now was appropriate timing. Snake was also now on his phone.

## break ##

Alex, feeling assured that he had just placed his life into the hands of someone with the maturity and attention span of a three year old, was pulled away and into the back. Ben gave him a look, and Alex nodded in return. Any stupid attempt they made, they would make together. Preferably after Wolf led the cavalry in with guns a-blazing.

Being separated from his partner made him want to know, need to know what was going on in the bank. Wolf, Snake, and Eagle were probably feeling the same thing. They were on the outside, which would be an even more frustrating experience for them. Alex could only hope they wouldn't try and do anything stupid, like attempt to rush the bank.

"Let me get this straight," the police chief said, staring at the screen. "We're looking at the video surveillance of the bank?"

"Yeah," Snake said. Eagle continued furiously typing at the laptop he had turned on. He looked like he was hacking something to do with the phones.

"And your friends are inside there?"

"Yeah," Wolf responded. Could he shoot someone, please? Anytime now would be nice. He didn't reach for his revolver, but he _wanted_too.

"And you're all in the SAS."

"Yes, can we move past this?" Wolf demanded. "Can we do something about this anytime soon? Like, help our friends?"

"What I'm not getting is how you managed to hack in and get video surveillance from a _bank_. You know how long it takes one of our guys to do that?" the chief said. "Not to mention, I'm not getting how you just _happen_to be there when this happens. It all seems a bit suspicious to me."

"Look, you get your techies over here, I can show 'em how I did it," Eagle said. "As for the whole robbery, well, that's not our fault, that's Cub. Everything goes wrong around him unless he's the one doing it, in which case everything flows randomly but as it's supposed to. Odd, no?"

His sheer powers of annoyance managed to somewhat soothe the chief. He was the only person it was soothing, however. The other two were getting more annoyed.

Matt's hand was trembling. Alex noticed that as soon as it started. The gun vibrated in his face, which was quite distracting from his attempts to summarize the situation and look for helpful details. He wondered if his classmate didn't want to be there, but then dismissed the thought. It was clear that whether he wanted to be there or not, Matt was enjoying holding a gun to Alex's face. While everyone else was over closer to the doors, Matt, Alex, and the gunmen were closer to the banking booths. Matt was clearly enjoying having a hostage at his disposal, Alex thought nervously.

Awesome.

Meanwhile, down under the table, Ben's phone rang. He cursed it's bad timing instantly, and nearly yelped when a surprised gunshot went off. He whipped around, fearing his friend's death, but saw it was not the case when he saw that Alex's face, while it had gone completely white, was instead very much alive. Matt had flinched at the sound, but by doing so had also yanked his gun far enough out of the way that the bullet had missed Alex.

"Shut the damn phone off!" Matt yelled. "I told you to turn them off!"

Then the phone answered itself.

Ben would've slammed his head into the floor or a convenient wall if any had been close enough. Eagle answered. Why had anyone let him do the negotiations?

"Hi, I'm sorry, but that won't be happening," Eagle said through the phone. "You see, I sort of hacked it, sooo you're not getting rid of me any time soon. I mean, you can turn it off and everything, but I'll still call back. I can even hack your radio reception and hop onto the same frequency you and your buddies are using, so don't try shooting all the phones. That'll just add to your crime list of things to arrest you for. Now, my teammates seem to be getting more and more pissed off at me the more I speak, so I'm going to hand the phone over to our negotiator-er, the police chief? No, negotiator, police chief, negotiator-shut up and figure it out you two!" Eagle paused. "Negotiator it is."

There was a rustling as someone else took the phone.

"Who the hell are you? No police, or we'll shoot hostages!" Matt shouted. He yelled into the back, "Hey, they hacked the phones!"

"What?" one of his guys yelled back.

"Let me just say, I am so sorry for my nimrod teammate. He has no 'off' button on his mouth." Behind Snake's voice, Ben could hear Wolf mauling Eagle. "There, Wolf's taking care of him. We're not police, anyway. Now, can we come to an agreement about this before you start killing people? After all, you've got stuff to do, I've got stuff to do, they've got stuff to do..."

"Oh please, like you care," Matt replied. All Alex could think of was that they had made their biggest mistake in letting their most inexperienced robber handle the negotiations.

"I do, actually. You see, you're sort of holding our actual negotiator hostage over there, and we kinda need him back. He's the only one with any real people skills. Fox could do it if he weren't usually lining up the sniper shot, I have a short patience that is quickly running out, you've already seen Eagle's effect on people, and Wolf will undoubtedly get all the hostages killed if he goes anywhere near the phone."

"Hey!"

"Who's your negotiator?" Matt demanded.

"Cub. But, you probably know him better as 'Alex.''

Matt's jaw dropped as he looked at the "hostage negotiator" that he was holding. He let go of Alex, which caused Alex to tumble backwards to the floor. Matt grabbed the phone that was making the noise and yelled, "He's a druggie, not a hostage negotiator!"

"Yeah, but he's _our_druggie!" Eagle yelled in the background. Alex buried his face in his hand. He would ensure he got out of here alive today just so he could kill Eagle.

"Eagle, shut up!" Snake and Wolf both yelled.

"Anyway... Believe it or not, he actually isn't on any drugs. He refuses them. Long story on that one, won't get into it now. Tell you what, how about you trade all the hostages in the bank for me? Then we could talk more privately."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Snake," Eagle volunteered, "you might get yourself killed."

"Let's send Eagle, then. Maybe he _will_get killed if we're lucky," Wolf muttered in the background.

Matt glared at Alex, attempting to see the 'hostage negotiator' instead of the 'teenage druggie' he was so used to seeing. He glanced at the quivering hostages. Well, he would always have two hostages, right? He liked the idea of trading them for Eagle. His comrades didn't seem to care if he got killed, and Matt was itching to kill someone today.

"Yeah, 'cause I'm chopped liver down here," Fox muttered to himself, trying to see where the other ones were. Hadn't they gone to the back of the bank, or something? He was still looking when suddenly they came out.

"All the 'bank staff' secured," they said triumphantly.

The two others came out, and looked pretty pissed while they did so. "Hey, we can't get into any of the crap!" one of them yelled. "It's locked down tighter than the last bank!"

"Hope you got that recorded," Alex muttered to Fox, who was barely within hearing range, but Fox just smirked. His phone recorded everything it picked up. Gotta love Smithers. He just hoped that Eagle's hacking hadn't over-ridden anything.

After a brief conference, the guys decided that they'd swap out the hostages for Eagle, since the other men didn't seem to care if he got killed, and they were all kinda itching to shoot someone.

Meanwhile, Ben crawled over to the fire alarm, not bothering to ponder Wolf's sudden disappearance in the phone conversation. He didn't have to look over his shoulder to know where he was. Fox was the best sniper of the four of them, but Wolf was next in line.

Alex smirked at him across the room when he reached up and pulled the fire alarm. Matt, too busy being lost in the conversation, didn't see anything.

Instantly, the lights turned off, the cameras sent every image to the police (not knowing it was doing so anyway), alerted every agent in the building to what was going on, and, to top it off, sprayed water everywhere. There was probably plenty of other stuff that Smithers had installed that it did, but that was all that Fox knew about.

The last known thing that he did was send a signal to Wolf, even though that wasn't programmed in. With a silent shot, one of the robbers went down with a bullet in the knee. Two more followed suit, before the others had the common sense to get under cover.

Alex, muttering something about overtime pay, flipped over the table and landed on one of them. He grabbed both of the man's hands, and yanked them over onto his back. The last man got a gun out, aiming at Fox, when Eagle and Snake swept in. Both fired once, and both hit their mark.

A moment of calm followed the storm.

"Someone better turn the bloody sprinklers off," Snake snapped. Alex did so. He smirked as the two gunmen who were still alive being were lead out. Matt was not happy that their plan had been over so soon. "I hate you, druggie!" he swore angrily even as he was being lead away by the police. "I'll get my revenge on you, I swear I will!"

"And the movie companies, too," Snake muttered. "It sounds much better when Bond's foes say it."

"No comment," Wolf remarked. "Well, we know now one thing: Eagle is very good to swap off. Why do you think they were so keen on taking the trade, Eagle for the hostages? Seemed pretty dumb to me."

The bankers were used to hostage attempts. This was, after all, the third time they'd watched the bank be attempted to get shot up... in their career.

"Doesn't matter," Snake said as he watched the panicked people exit the building. His eyes scanned the surface, looking for Alex and Fox. "But I know one thing: next time we need Eagle around to piss off the locals so much they decide to help us. It worked this time..."

Wolf answered his phone when it rang urgently in his pocket. He answered it. "Yeah? … Oh, hello, sergeant..." He shot a panicked look at his comrades, finally seeing Fox leave the building. The bank had been on the news, and the sergeant had seen the whole thing. "Hey! Fox! You're still on the sergeant's good side, you explain!" he called, waving him over. Fox rolled his eyes, and jogged over. Alex followed closely behind, still looking irritated about the whole thing.

## break ##

Blunt and Jones approached the bank, a harried look on both of their faces. They had been away at a conference, and as such, had their cell phones turned off. The meeting had gone well to start off with, but the second they had turned their phones back on, they had security guards and agents calling in, frantic to know what to do.

The conversations had gone something like this.

"What's happening back at the bank?" Jones urgently asked.

"It's being robbed, but-"

"Then do something!"

"But agents Rider and Daniels are down there! We figured they could get it sorted out..."

Jones and Blunt, who was within hearing, exchanged exasperated glances. "And you don't think you should help them?" Blunt responded.

"Well, anyone who works with Rider tends to get shot, have you noticed that?" the agent responded nervously. "And Daniels seemed to be doing pretty well at not getting shot, and their SAS team was doing a great job at negotiating..."

The speed limit had been broken on their return trip home.

Now, they watched on as the remaining civilians filed out, and the clerks who had been behind the desks exchanged hushed whispers. K-Unit and both of their agents were talking by a car, exchanging quirks and smart-aleck remarks.

The pair marched up to the police chief. Before they could reach him, however, Alex shot them a warning look from across the parking lot. Jones acknowledged the look, and, feeling they owed him something, tugged Blunt the other way.

"Hi. We get a pay raise, right? A bonus? Something to quantify for almost getting our heads shot off?" Alex asked.

"Who's this?" Wolf demanded.

Ignoring his unit leader, Fox said, "Well, Alex was almost getting his head shot off, I was busy trying to get the fire alarm going without anyone noticing. No small feat, I might add."

Alex scoffed. "Oh come on, everyone was busy with me and not paying attention. You could've gotten up and walked over."

"Sure, sure..."

"Now who's chopped liver?" Snake remarked back, gesturing grandly to himself and the other two.

Blunt and Jones, for the second time that day, gave each other exasperated looks that spoke volumes.

"Who are you?" Wolf demanded again.

Jones put out her hand. "I'm the deputy of MI6's special ops, and this is Director Blunt, who runs it."

Wolf blinked and paused for the briefest of moments before shaking her hand. "Ah," he replied. Then paused. "Wait, what are you doing _here_?"

"Ah," Alex said, catching onto the conversation, "that's an interesting story, isn't it?"

Blunt raised an eyebrow at him. "Have either of you told the police we need to move back in? We're busy."

"No, we figured you would have time to do that when you came back in," Fox replied. He kept the smirk off his face, luckily for his career.

"I swear, you are so mean!" Eagle pouted. Blunt's eyes narrowed on him. _He _was a solider? "You set me up to be killed!"

"Too bad it didn't work," Snake muttered.

"Thanks, Fox, for not letting me get killed," Eagle responded, a cheerful smile on his face.

Alex, seeing the two, looked at Blunt. "This is what you set me up with when you gave me a unit to stalk me up with. I vote that this is your fault."

"Alex..." Fox warned. He wanted to keep his job, and he, unlike Alex, didn't have the whole 'underage' thing that would make him work as a spy...

"... I believe that this is the fault of the people who decided to shoot up the building, yes?" Blunt asked. "Jones, please suspend my calls. I need to go have a think." With that, he left the room.

Alex watched the two departing and then turned towards the K-Unit. "Next time you all decide to bring me out to run errands on my day off," Alex said, "don't."

TADA~

a/n: This was a combined effort done by **Writer With Sprite** and **NightmareWorld**. Do you have any clue how fun it was to chase each other's cursors around and make comments randomly inserted in the story (deleted now, of course)? Not until you've done it, you haven't. Thank you, Google Docs, for that humorous experience.

The two of us were free the morning we wrote it, and **rainstripe** and **SamayouTamashi** weren't. Normally, they'd write with us, but... not today. Stay tuned for our upcoming works, and check out our profiles. I hope you enjoyed this oneshot, brought to you by two sleep-deprived people without a clue of what they were writing!


End file.
